


Alone in Space

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Community: rs_games, M/M, R/S Games 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-06 19:16:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12217227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: R/S Games 2017 - Day 5 - Team RemusSirius smiled but it was a sad smile. "You know I'm always late."





	Alone in Space

**Author's Note:**

> **Team:** Remus  
>  **Title:** Alone in Space  
>  **Rating:** R  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Genres:** Angst, AU, Science Fiction  
>  **Word Count:** 7500  
>  **Summary:** _Sirius smiled but it was a sad smile. "You know I'm always late."_  
>  **Notes:** Thank you so much to my two lovely beta-readers! There might have been a few things I was stubborn about, so any remaining mistakes are definitely my own.  
>  **Prompt:** #44 - "For time is the longest distance between two places." - Tennessee Williams

In the end, everything is clear and Sirius is dead. That must be fixed.  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
Two years earlier, Remus Lupin was standing in the transporter room when the familiar voice came through the speakers. He would have cursed, but there were several people staring at him and he had a reputation as someone who never lost his temper, so he only clenched his fists.  
  
“We’re ready when you are, Mr. Black,” said Tonks, eyeing Remus quite curiously. Her hair was very pink today. Once, at a Christmas party, Remus had thought about kissing her, or rather letting himself be kissed by her.  
  
“Remus, I know you’re there,” the voice said, older and hoarser but still the same and impossibly arrogant as always. “Just say hi to me.”  
  
“Fuck you,” he said and then bit his lip.  
  
“I knew it,” Sirius said through the speakers. “Hello to you, too. You sound older. And I’m ready now, beam me up.”  
  
“May I be dismissed?” Remus said as the transporter began to hum, and then walked out before Tonks could answer.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Sirius found him six hours later. He had finished his shift in the laboratory where Molly Weasley had let him work with the samples in the study he knew nothing about. He had thought about a few good places to hide and then realised he had to avoid them just in case Sirius still knew him. After the shift had ended, he had told Molly several times that he was alright and then he had walked through the corridors as aimlessly as he could. He had just passed the recycling room on deck three when Sirius called out to him.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said from behind his back, and the voice lingered in the corridor and possibly inside of him as well, because he felt suddenly sick, “just fucking stop already. You know I run faster than you.”  
  
“I don’t know that,” he said without turning around. His voice sounded oddly squeaky, as if he wasn’t really breathing.  
  
“I know it’s been twelve years,” Sirius said. Remus realised he had stopped walking. Fine. He had known this might happen. He had told himself he would be ready. He could face Sirius. He wouldn’t blame Sirius. He wouldn’t ask for answers. He wouldn’t be angry about something that had happened ages ago on another solar system to a kid he barely remembered anymore, certainly not when he looked in the mirror. And most of all, he wouldn’t cry.  
  
“No, you don’t,” he said and his voice broke.  
  
“You’re crying,” Sirius said. His steps were slow now, almost soft. He was coming closer. After all this time he had come back as if Remus hadn’t spent the last twelve years trying to let him go. “Just cry. I knew you would. And I knew I would say all the wrong things. That’s why I almost said no when the old man asked for me.”  
  
“You should have,” Remus said and closed his eyes. Sirius stopped beside him. He could have touched Sirius if he had wanted, perhaps brush their arms together, or grab Sirius’ wrist and hold him there.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“I’m not crying.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Sirius said. “But I don’t mind, only perhaps we should do this in your cabin.”  
  
“Do what?”  
  
“I missed you, you know. From day one.”  
  
“But you didn’t come back.”  
  
“It’s just that when you realise you’ve made a mistake,” Sirius said from too close and Remus glanced at him for the first time in fucking twelve years, and what a terrible idea that was, he thought and bit his lip. Sirius looked exactly the same, only thinner, more worn, somehow stretched as if he had pushed through something and lost half of himself along the way. But it didn’t really make a difference, not enough at least. His eyes were the same, and his mouth.  
  
“What?” he said when he realised Sirius was still talking.  
  
“I said that’s the thing with mistakes,” Sirius said, eyeing him as if trying to find something to be pulled out from Remus, and Remus knew he would, he fucking would like he did every single time. “You make mistakes and then you stick with them because you just hope they’ll turn out not to be mistakes after all. Because otherwise you’re screwed.”  
  
“I don’t think it works like that,” he said. He was staring at Sirius’ mouth, which was grinning in the corners as if it remembered being pressed against Remus’, or how Remus had been lying on his back in the sheets in the cabin they had shared with Peter and James long time ago. And they had said it wasn’t sex, it wasn’t, it was just very soft kisses pressed everywhere on Remus’ chest and stomach, and in the end of it he had rolled onto his stomach and Sirius had kept kissing his neck.  
  
“But it does,” Sirius said. “I kept thinking that it’ll get easier. I’ll get over you. And you’ll get over me. It’ll be worth it because, you know, we both get to live our own lives and all that. In a huge galaxy where you shouldn’t tie yourself to one person when you’re twenty-one and can’t make decisions.”  
  
“So did it -,” he said even though he didn’t want to hear the answer, “- did it get easier?”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said. “Of course. After a few years I began to think that maybe you’d changed. You wouldn’t be the same person anymore. And I wouldn’t either. And we were a few thousand light years away from each other anyway.”  
  
“Sirius,” he said and tried to make his voice steady, “I’m not in love with you anymore.”  
  
Sirius took a deep breath. “Oh, fucking hell, Remus. You’re still in love with me?”  
  
“I just said I’m not,” he said and Sirius tilted his head to the right. He took a step back. Sirius pushed his hands into his pockets which was odd because Remus had never realised uniform pants had pockets.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, “we’re on a starship. You can’t really hide from me.”  
  
“I can try,” he said and took another step.  
  
“We’re on the same shift tomorrow,” Sirius said. “Dumbledore said something about catching up with old friends.”  
  
“But surely he knows what happened.”  
  
“Of course he knows,” Sirius said, “that’s why he’s doing it.”  
  
“I can’t take this,” Remus said. He was walking backwards now, not steadily but at least he was trying.  
  
“I didn’t say I’m not in love with you,” Sirius said.  
  
Remus walked to the turbolift and then stopped, but no one was following him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“So, you and Sirius,” Tonks said, stopping beside him as he was watching the stars fading in the distance.  
  
“No,” he said.  
  
“I knew there was something,” Tonks said, “someone who had broken your heart. Every time someone mentioned dating or girlfriends or boyfriends you had this look in your eyes, like you were trying to hide how sad you are.”  
  
“It was a long time ago.”  
  
“So you aren’t in love with him anymore.”  
  
He glanced at Tonks.  
  
“Well, then,” Tonks said, “he’s here now. He didn’t have to come.”  
  
“He kind of did, though.”  
  
“You know he could always find a way out of something he didn’t want to do.”  
  
Remus laughed out and then bit his lip. He hadn’t meant to sound so bitter.  
  
“I didn’t mean that.”  
  
“You might as well have,” he said. “He wanted to get rid of me and he found a way.”  
  
“It’s funny, you know,” Tonks said, turning her gaze to the stars behind the glass, “we’re travelling through space, visiting planets no human has ever walked on, and sometimes it feels the scariest thing that could happen is that you might fall in love.”  
  
“It’s not _that_ scary,” Remus said, thinking about how Sirius had kissed him before leaving. Neither of them had cried. Remus had felt as if someone had carved him empty.  
  
“Well then,” Tonks said, “why are you here and not talking to him?”  
  
  
**  
  
  
Sirius was in his cabin as if he had been waiting for Remus, which was a fair guess anyway. Remus stepped in and the door closed behind him.  
  
“Pretty nice, isn’t it?” Sirius said, waving his hand, the same hand that had held Remus on a different starship, in a different solar system, a lifetime ago. “Do you remember how we started with the four of us in that cabin that was barely larger than this?”  
  
“Of course I remember.”  
  
“Well, I guess you would,” Sirius said. “Remember how we waited until they were out and programmed the door to get stuck and then –“  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And then,” Sirius said a bit louder, “then I kissed you, and you said _we’re going to get caught_ or something stupid like that and I told you to shut up. And you always did.”  
  
“You left me,” he said. “James died and Peter got transferred and then you left me.”  
  
“I came back,” Sirius said, standing up and walking to him.  
  
“Twelve years later.”  
  
Sirius smiled but it was a sad smile. “You know I’m always late.”  
  
“I tried to get over you. I really tried.”  
  
“I want to kiss you,” Sirius said. “I’m here now. Let me kiss you.”  
  
“Our shift starts in an hour.”  
  
“Surely you remember what I can do in an hour.”  
  
“I don’t trust you,” Remus said, “I can’t trust you. You’re going to leave again.”  
  
“Maybe not,” Sirius said and took a step forward so that he was now standing close enough for Remus to smell him, the hint of coffee and sweat, and the product he apparently was still using in his hair. Remus raised his hands. Sirius watched him as he placed his fingers on Sirius’ neck, then tucked them into Sirius’ hair that was thinner than before even with the product, but still messy and coarse, and he felt Sirius’ breath on his face as he circled his fingertips on Sirius’ scalp.  
  
“Maybe I won’t leave,” Sirius said in a quiet voice.  
  
“Just shut up.”  
  
“I’m older now. Sometimes I think about asking for a job on Earth. We could rent a flat.”  
  
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”  
  
“We could go back to London,” Sirius said, “your dad’s still alive, I checked. He’d want to see you. We could rent a cottage in Wales, somewhere on the coast, and then we’d stay in bed and hear the waves rushing to the rocks and I’d kiss the insides of your thighs, I’m sure I could find your spots again if I only could –“  
  
“There were no _spots_ ,” Remus said and moved his fingers in Sirius’ hair, “it was just you.”  
  
“ _Ah._ ”  
  
“Yes,” he said, “ _ah._ ”  
  
“You could just kiss me, you know,” Sirius said, watching him. “You’re already in my hair.”  
  
“You’ll disappear the moment I fall for you.”  
  
“You fell for me when we were kids in London,” Sirius said, and for once his eyes weren’t grinning. “It’s too late now anyway.”  
  
“I can’t do this again,” Remus said and kissed Sirius.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“So,” Sirius said a few days later, or weeks perhaps, his legs uncomfortably tangled with Remus’ because there just wasn’t enough space in the narrow bed, “what have you been doing?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“What’ve you been doing?”  
  
“You mean what I’ve been doing without you?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Being lonely,” he said. His left arm had gone numb some time ago. He tried to move it but Sirius was laying on it.  
  
“Even you can’t have been lonely for twelve years.”  
  
“It comes very naturally to me.”  
  
“Are you lonely now?” Sirius said, running his fingers down Remus’ side. Possibly it was meant to tickle.  
  
He closed his eyes.  
  
“Really?” Sirius said in a hushed voice. “I literally have my knee between your legs. I’m so close to you that you can hardly breathe. I bet you don’t even feel your fingers.”  
  
“It’s not about that,” he said, taking a quick peek at Sirius who looked genuinely curious and not very frustrated. Yet. When they had been young and stupid and sleeping together in that tiny cabin they’d shared with James and Peter, Sirius hadn’t been very patient with Remus’ melancholy or whatever it was called. _Self-misery_ , Sirius had said, _you’re swimming in the sea of self-misery._ Remus had said _you’re ridiculous._ But now that he was a bit older and not much wiser he had begun thinking that maybe he really was incurably lonely.  
  
“No? What’s it about then?” Sirius said.  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
“It’s just,” Remus said and took a deep breath which pushed his chest into Sirius’ shoulder, “I could talk to you for hours and still you wouldn’t know what’s inside my head.”  
  
“Not true. I know your head.”  
  
“I don’t,” he said, “I don’t and you don’t either. I could tell you how I felt after you had left. But you wouldn’t know. Do you know that saying about how every human is an island?”  
  
“Don’t go there, Lupin,” Sirius said, but there was something nervous in his voice.  
  
“Sometimes I realise I’m staring through the glass and not doing anything.”  
  
Remus waited. Sirius drew a long breath. _I’m going to humour you,_ Sirius’ eyes said, _even though I know it’s a mistake.  
  
Yes, _ he thought, because wasn’t that all there was to do anyway. _Humour me and kiss me and grab me and then later hold me.  
  
_ “Staring at what?” Sirius asked in a low voice that probably was meant to be a warning.  
  
“Space,” Remus said, “I’m staring at space and thinking about how incredibly tiny we are. Tiny pieces in a huge universe, going from place to place until we die.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, now watching him closely, “we’re young. It’ll be a long time until we die.”  
  
“You don’t know that,” he said, “and it’s not the point anyway. We _will_ die. One day we’ll die. And then we’re going to go alone.”  
  
“Fucking hell,” Sirius said, “I’m going to take you with me when I go if you keep messing up my mood like this.”  
  
“It’s funny,” Remus said, “we have all this technology. We think we can do whatever we want and if there’s something we can’t, we’ll invent a technological innovation that’ll do it for us. But we can’t turn back time.”  
  
“I don’t know about that. I’ve read some interesting articles lately.”  
  
“I want to have sex,” Remus said.  
  
“Now?” Sirius asked, climbing over him and almost falling off the bed. “I don’t. We’ve been talking about death for at least five minutes.”  
  
“Can you kiss me?”  
  
“You want me to kiss you.”  
  
He blinked and felt Sirius’ breath on his face. “Yes.”  
  
“So that you’ll forget that you’re lonely and that we’re going to die one day.”  
  
“Yes,” he said. “I won’t forget, though.”  
  
“You should have forgotten about me,” Sirius said and kissed him.  
  
“I couldn’t,” he said into Sirius’ mouth, “I just didn’t know how to.”  
  
  
**

**  
  
  
What’s happening now is that Remus Lupin is standing frozen, both hands pressed to the glass, watching as the shuttle goes through the black hole. The mission wasn’t even complicated. Of course there is a war going on and no one is quite certain who the enemy is so they’ve been calling them _you-know-who,_ as if that’s not nonsense, Sirius always says. But their mission here wasn’t supposed to be difficult at all: go near to the black hole, _not too near you idiot_ , pick up the scientists studying it from a tiny planet they’ve been staying on, gather some data if you can, get out. That was the plan. But it seems now that something’s gone wrong. Remus feels like he’s made of glass. In a moment or two he’s going to shatter.  
  
And the funny thing is that he’s been thinking that he shouldn’t have kissed Sirius, because let’s face it, it was clear from the beginning that his heart was going to get broken. And he knew that it was going to hurt even worse than in the last time. He knew it all along. But now he thinks _you fool, you never had a chance. You’re in love with him. You were going to kiss him and you were going to get your heart broken and there was absolutely nothing you could have done about it._  
  
He starts running. Sirius is dead and he can’t take it, he just can’t. It can’t have happened. Sirius’ shuttle went through the black hole but it can’t be the end. Remus runs to the turbolift and then turns around because he can’t stand to see their faces, not now. He’s pretty sure everyone knows he’s in love with Sirius because First Officer McGonagall has been winking at him for a year now and Captain Dumbledore seems mildly irritated anytime he and Sirius are in the same room. They would take one look at him now and see that he’s shattered.  
  
When he reaches the shuttle, there’s no one around. He has the code so he just walks in. Perhaps he has twenty seconds before someone will realise what he’s doing and Dumbledore gets the security to stop him. But he’s not going to be here anymore. He starts the engines and realises that his hands aren’t even shaking.  
  
The airlock is on, the doors open, his ears are ringing, or perhaps that’s Sirius calling him an idiot. Last night he didn’t go to Sirius’ cabin because he was thinking about how he would break his heart in the end. And now Sirius is dead.  
  
Four minutes later he’s sure they aren’t going to come after him. Perhaps they recognise an impossible task when they see it. The stars are floating all around him, the shuttle seems too large, the black hole gets closer and closer, and all the lights are fading. His heart is beating as madly as when Sirius first kissed him when they were maybe nineteen years old.  
  
If only he could travel back in time.  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
“It’s just a theory, of course,” Sirius said, dripping water onto the floor as he walked through the room and sat down on the bed. “But I don’t get why it couldn’t be done.”  
  
“You aren’t a scientist.”  
  
“No,” Sirius said, “but everything’s a theory first. If we can bend time forward when we travel between solar systems, why couldn’t we do it backwards?”  
  
“Sirius,” he said, “come to bed.”  
  
“I’m in bed.”  
  
“You’re naked and wet and you haven’t brushed your teeth.”  
  
“If I figured out how to travel back in time,” Sirius said, “I would go back to the day when I left.”  
  
Remus swallowed. “Why?”  
  
“You know why,” Sirius said in a low voice. “You keep looking at me like you’re afraid I’m going to leave again.”  
  
“That’s not true.”  
  
“Yes, it is and you know it.”  
  
“Well,” he said and sat up, “I can’t help it.”  
  
“I know,” Sirius said. “Lay down. I’m going to kiss you.”  
  
“On what?”  
  
“On your mouth.”  
  
“Sirius,” he said, “it’s not like I don’t want to be happy.”  
  
“Just shut up,” Sirius said and pushed his shoulders gently until he was lying on his back. “I’m not twenty-one anymore, Remus. I know you’re sad and I can’t fix you.”  
  
“Do you think,” he said even though Sirius was placing wet kisses on his neck and behind his ears, “that some people are just fine with life, you know, that some people don’t think about…”  
  
“About death? Sure.”  
  
“I’m not _really_ afraid of death but –“  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said and kissed his hipbone, “you are. You always were. Just close your eyes. I’m trying to turn you on.”  
  
“I noticed.”  
  
“So can you please stop talking so that I can –“  
  
“I think I’m more afraid now that you’ve come back.”  
  
“I’m not going to die,” Sirius said.  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
It shouldn’t work but it does.  
  
Remus stares at the numbers running in the clock. They’re going backwards. It’s like magic, _no_ , it’s a theory, it’s the crazy theory Sirius read about in a journal that was half science and half wishful thinking. Or perhaps Remus flew into the black hole after all, and now he’s dead too and this is his last dream. But he can’t make himself believe it. His heart feels heavy and he misses Sirius more than he can bear. If he was dead, certainly he would feel better.  
  
In the distance he can see the starship _Phoenix_ slowly backing away. Sirius’ shuttlecraft pulls away from the black hole and gets drawn into the ship. It’s now two, no, two and a half hours before Sirius died, and the time is running faster and faster, only into the wrong direction.  
  
He shuts off the engines when he’s a little more than two years in the past. The clock stops running and then after an incredibly long moment when he thinks he can’t breathe, seconds start slowly going by. He gasps for breath. He’s shaking now but it fades away soon. Of course this is crazy but the shuttle has air and food for perhaps two weeks so he’ll have some time to think about that. He sends subspace messages but the chances that he’ll find someone who will pick him up are quite slim. Stars seem like bright distant rocks in the monitor, and he watches them thinking that at least Sirius is still alive.  
  
  
**  
  
  
After ten days spent alone in the shuttle he thinks he didn’t have a clue about what being lonely feels like. When there’s a crackling voice coming through the speakers asking who he is and why the hell he’s floating alone in space, he thinks he’s hearing voices. After a few quite sharp demands he thinks it’s maybe a good idea to answer. Luckily he’s been talking to himself enough that his voice is still working.  
  
“So, who are you?” the captain asks him for the third time when he’s in the transporter room and his knees are trembling.  
  
“John,” he says, because the woman looks like she’s serious. “John Black.”  
  
“John Black?” the captain says.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And where’re you coming from, John Black?”  
  
“I was supposed to gather data about the black hole,” he says, “I don’t remember the coordinates but I have them in the shuttle. I got too close and my shuttle broke.”  
  
“John Black,” the captain says, “that’s one of the worst explanations I’ve ever heard. But you don’t look determined enough to be a smuggler or a space pirate. When have you last eaten?”  
  
“I’m not sure.”  
  
“Well, I can’t put you back in your shuttle and let you drift away,” the captain says. “You can stay here for now. But give me any trouble and I’ll leave you on the first inhabited planet we pass.”  
  
“Thank you,” he says.  
  
Later he lays on the narrow bed and watches the ceiling. The engines hum. His heart beats steadily. When he pinches his arm, it hurts. He takes a quick shower and then tries to read something, but all he can think about is _Sirius, Sirius, Sirius._  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
“Sirius?”  
  
“Shut up,” Sirius said in a hoarse voice. “I’m sleeping.”  
  
“No, you aren’t.”  
  
“Well, your knee is pushing into my stomach so I can’t really sleep. And I can’t move either because otherwise I’ll fall off the bed.”  
  
“I should go to my own cabin.”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Sirius said. “It’s middle of the night and you’re trying to be lonely and miserable. You don’t get to do that alone, Lupin.”  
  
“I don’t get this,” he said. Sirius’ head was heavy on his chest and his mouth was full of Sirius’ hair.  
  
“I don’t want to hear about it.”  
  
“You and me,” he said, “I don’t get you and me. You always said you were going to go places, throughout the galaxy. You said you weren’t going to get stuck for anything or anyone.”  
  
“Remus –,” Sirius began, in a voice that was heavy with the twelve missing years in between them.  
  
“No,” he cut in, “I’m not blaming you. At least, not right now. What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t make sense that we’re here.”  
  
“No, it doesn’t,” Sirius said. “This bed is too narrow. We should make this an official thing and ask for a cabin with a decent bed. Everyone knows about us anyway.”  
  
“And there’s absolutely nothing special about me. I’m just this boy from Wales.”  
  
“You should stop moving or else you’re going to shove me onto the floor.”  
  
“I can’t figure out any reason why you’d fall in love with me.”  
  
“You utter idiot,” Sirius said in his slightly posh tone he rarely used these days, almost like he had lost the tone somewhere along the twelve years that he had been travelling through space. “You don’t get to say that.”  
  
“Of course I get to –“  
  
“I came back to you,” Sirius said. “I came here when Dumbledore offered me this post and I only did it because I wanted to see you. And I thought you’d got over me. I really did until the _Phoenix_ got ready to beam me up and I heard your voice through the speakers.”  
  
“And then you realised that I’m still as stupid as I was when we were twenty-one.”  
  
“And then I realised you were still this lonely sad man with a haunting stare. I knew you’d be angry at me and then you’d forgive me and let me kiss you.”  
  
“I kissed you.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said softly, “so maybe you’ve changed a bit after all.”  
  
“But I’m not brave.”  
  
“We’re in space. Of course you’re brave.”  
  
“I think I’m going to lose you again.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said and placed a lazy wet kiss on his neck, “let’s think I turned back time and went to the day when I left you. Do you remember? I was packing my things in our cabin and I wanted you to come tell me not to go but you didn’t. So this time I’ll just leave my things and go find you.”  
  
“I was in the observatory room.”  
  
“Of course you were. I’d have figured it out. So now I’m there, in the doorway. I step in. The door slides shut behind me. You turn around.”  
  
“I’ve been crying,” Remus said and breathed in, only it was a bit difficult because Sirius was laying heavily on him. “I think I cried.”  
  
“I wish I had, too,” Sirius said, “maybe it would have knocked some sense into me. So, now I’m walking to you. You dry your wet red face with your sleeves. And you sneeze. You look completely miserable. And I grab your hands and pull you in and kiss you and you cling into me.”  
  
“And what then,” Remus said, “are you going to leave anyway?”  
  
“No. I think not.”  
  
“That’s not how it went.”  
  
“Of course it’s not how it went,” Sirius said. “It’s what I’d do if I got a second chance. I’d be wiser now. I’d probably push you backwards until your back was pressed against the glass. The stars would be floating there in space behind you. And I’d kiss you again and your eyes would go soft.”  
  
“I’ve been crying, you idiot.”  
  
“Not that kind of soft. They were red already. But now you’re watching me like you’d never let me go.”  
  
“I wouldn’t have. But you wanted to go.”  
  
“Next time,” Sirius said, “don’t let me. Or come with me. Come with me, Remus.”  
  
“Sirius, are you –“  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Your hand is kind of on my –“  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said and pushed a few fingers under the waistband of his pants. “Can I?”  
  
“We should sleep.”  
  
“You woke me up,” Sirius said and wrapped his fingers gently around Remus. It had been clumsy and hasty before, and Remus had always been afraid of the ending. But they were older now and it seemed that time had made even Sirius Black a bit more patient. “Just let me get you off. You can close your eyes. Think about how lonely you are.”  
  
“I’m not too lonely now,” he said. Sirius’ hand was going slowly and he felt Sirius’ breath on his neck.  
  
“Alone in space,” Sirius said, “that’s what you are, Lupin.”  
  
“Don’t call me Lupin when we’re having sex.”  
  
“You aren’t hard yet. Do you want me to stop? We could go to sleep if you want.”  
  
“No,” he said, “go on. It’ll take some time.”  
  
“I think I was in love with you,” Sirius said and kissed his collarbone, “even as a kid. I just didn’t realise it until it was too late.”  
  
“Stop talking.”  
  
“You missed my voice,” Sirius said into his neck and he closed his eyes. “You missed it so much you probably imagined it at night when you were touching yourself.”  
  
He took a deep and a little shaky breath. “I forgot your voice.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Don’t stop,” he said because Sirius’ hand had stilled. Sirius laughed and kissed him. “I meant that I couldn’t really imagine it. I tried to. But I couldn’t.”  
  
“No wonder you were lonely,” Sirius said and placed a palm on his cheek. “We’ll have to record my voice so that you can’t forget it again.”  
  
“Fuck you,” he said. His voice sounded out of breath.  
  
“Later,” Sirius said. “Now look me in the eyes and tell me you’re lonely.”  
  
He breathed in but kept quiet. Sirius’ fingers grew bolder until finally he came into Sirius’ hand. The engines hummed around them, Sirius kissed his mouth and ear and neck, and he lay on the bed and kept breathing until he fell asleep. In the morning his left arm was numb and Sirius was sleeping on him, open-mouthed and snoring.  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
“So, John,” says the captain and sits down, “here’s the thing. You have to tell us.”  
  
“There’s nothing to tell,” Remus says. He’s been sitting in his cabin for a little more than five hours now. He thought about taking a nap but decided against it, because what if he woke up thinking he was still in the shuttle, running out of air and with Sirius’ voice echoing inside of him.  
  
“Listen. I ran a computer check on you. There’re quite a few humans called John Black alive at the moment but none of them has any reason to be floating in space in a shuttle. So I checked your shuttle and then contacted _Phoenix._ That shuttle should be with _Phoenix._ Albus Dumbledore checked it for me and he told me it’s there, exactly where it should be. So, are you telling me that this one is a copy?”  
  
Remus closes his eyes for a second. His head is hurting. “It’s not a copy.”  
  
“Captain Dumbledore was lying then.”  
  
“No,” Remus says. “He might. But I think he didn’t this time.”  
  
“You know him,” the captain says, taking a chair and sitting down. She looks almost younger than Remus is but she has a sharp stare.  
  
“Yes,” he says. He’s too tired. This was a bad idea, no, this was an insane idea. He should have flown through the black hole like Sirius did. Then they’d both be dead.  
  
“John, tell me why you have one of the _Phoenix’s_ shuttles and why they don’t even know it’s missing.”  
  
“It’s not missing,” he says, “yet. I travelled in time.”  
  
The captain blinks. “That’s not possible.”  
  
“My name is Remus Lupin,” Remus says because what the hell, he’s already done an impossible thing, and the captain looks kind enough that maybe she won’t give him away. And also he’s very tired. “Ask Dumbledore. He’ll tell you that I’m on the _Phoenix._ ”  
  
“You’re kidding,” the captain says.  
  
Remus almost laughs.  
  
“You have to be kidding,” the captain says and then grabs his hand. He freezes. She holds his hand between her own almost as if she’s trying to take his pulse and find out if he’s real.  
  
“My friend went through the black hole,” he says in a voice that sounds rushed and hollow. “He was trying to collect data but I suppose he went too near. He was always a bit reckless. And I just couldn’t take it. I took… I stole the shuttle and went after him. But there’s this theory about time travelling. He was obsessed with it. He kept bringing it up. I think he tried to fix me. He made me read the articles and then, when he was dead, I just…”  
  
“You tried it.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And if I ask Dumbledore about Remus Lupin…”  
  
“He’ll tell you that I’m on the _Phoenix_ ,” Remus says. “I’m a space physicist. I’m there to study the uncertainties and irregularities of space.”  
  
“So,” the captain says and lets go of his hand, “you’re studying how odd space is.”  
  
“It’s very odd,” he says, “and huge.”  
  
“I know that,” the captain says and stands up. “You’ll stay here. I’ll talk to Dumbledore and come back later.”  
  
When she comes back, she has an odd look on her face. She sends the guards away from the door and then stands in front of Remus, looking down at him as if she’s not quite certain whether he’s actually there. By this time, Remus has had three more intense conversations with Sirius’ voice about how fucking stupid he was to follow Sirius back in time.  
  
“I think you’re telling the truth,” the captain says in a tight voice. “I just had a chat with Remus Lupin about how odd and huge space is. What do we do now?”  
  
“I need to find my friend,” Remus says.  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
“It’s a simple theory,” Sirius said, sitting beside him in the observatory room. “You need to use the gravity to create a gap in the time structure of space. Almost like we do when we travel in light-speed, only it’s about time.”  
  
“I know,” Remus said, watching through the glass. They had seen a star collapse a few days ago so it was good that everything was quiet now, a beautiful night in space, or a morning, or an afternoon. Sometimes he wondered if time even existed. Perhaps it was only a way to talk about how things grew older and died. “I’ve read those articles, Sirius. You keep pushing them at me.”  
  
“You’re a physicist,” Sirius said, “you should be interested in this.”  
  
Remus pressed his palm against the glass that wasn’t really glass. It was cold.  
  
“Perhaps we could save James this time.”  
  
“It was an accident.”  
  
“I know that,” Sirius said. “And then maybe I wouldn’t leave.”  
  
Remus closed his eyes. He felt Sirius’ hand on his stomach, drawing him nearer, pulling him as if there had been anything in him that could have resisted even if he had wanted to. He let Sirius wrap his arms around him. There was no one here to see them and if someone rushed in, well, they had probably guessed already. He felt Sirius’ heart beating steadily against his back and Sirius’ fingers moving gently on his stomach, looking for his ribs, following his breaths.  
  
“We never did this,” he said, because Sirius was touching him as if they had all the time in the universe, “before.”  
  
“I was always in a hurry,” Sirius said, his breath tickling Remus’ neck. “I don’t know what for.”  
  
“But now you’ve become slow.”  
  
“And you’re still sad,” Sirius said. “You’re a sad lonely man and your hair’s turning grey far too early and it’s my fault.”  
  
“I think it’s about my DNA.”  
  
“I was talking about the sadness.”  
  
“That, too,” Remus said. “We can’t change what happened, Sirius.”  
  
“I can do whatever I want,” Sirius said in a rather sad voice and kissed his ear.  
  
Later they fucked, as Sirius called it. Lately Remus had been wondering if perhaps it was meant to sound harsh so that something could be hidden underneath. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to call it. He tried not to talk about it, or if he did he said _sex_ and it felt distant and almost as wrong as _fucking_. It took ages to get himself inside of Sirius and like always he wondered if Sirius really liked it at all or if it was just Sirius’ way of saying _I’m sorry_ or something like that. But Sirius kept telling him to _come on, come on Remus_ and when he finally did he came almost right away. Sirius watched him, mouth half-open but eyes intent, and he told Sirius he was sorry and Sirius told him not to worry about it, he could use his hands. He did. Sirius kept saying his name which hadn’t really happened when they had been twenty-one, because back then it had been more like groans that had sounded like Sirius had picked them up from a movie.  
  
“We could stop this,” Sirius said afterwards, when they had taken a quick shower and were lying on the bed tangled together, “stop travelling through space. We’re never going to see all of it. And the old man says the war is going to get worse.”  
  
“Don’t talk,” Remus said, “I’m sleeping.”  
  
“We could find a nice planet,” Sirius said, “a small one would do, something with an atmosphere and, like, water.”  
  
“You’re crazy.”  
  
“Maybe we’ll build a cottage like the one your dad has in Wales. And we’ll just live there for the rest of our lives and leave space and the stupid war to the others. You can write articles about how big space is if you want. And I’ll sleep late in the mornings. And then we’ll fuck.”  
  
“It doesn’t feel like fucking,” Remus said and then bit his lip.  
  
Sirius was quiet for a long time, which was of course unnerving and never a good sign. And then he sighed and pulled Remus closer. “No, it doesn’t.”  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
He tells the captain everything. Perhaps the time travelling has messed his head up worse than he thought, but the captain keeps coming to his cabin, which is probably a cell as well. She listens to him and doesn’t try to joke about everything like Sirius did and doesn’t look like she’s pitying him, either. Eventually he finds out that she knew James back in London, where they had a few dates before she got assigned to her first deep space mission. She seems shaken when he tells her that James died in a stupid accident fourteen years ago, or technically twelve years ago now because it’s 2294 again.  
  
The next time they talk, she tells him to stop looking so uncertain. It’s pretty clear that he chose Sirius. He could have just mourned for him and then kept living his life, but he didn’t. He went backwards in time. That’s a pretty big decision, bigger than one made on a busy street corner in London when you have to tell your new boyfriend that you’re going to space for five years and you’re going to need to forget about him because that’s easier for everyone.  
  
He asks her where the ship is going. She asks him if he’s going to tell Sirius about how he followed him through time. He doesn’t know yet. The ship isn’t going anywhere near Azkaban 21 but she drops him in the starbase where he can catch a lift on a cargo ship that’s going to visit the colony. It should be there just a few days before the _Phoenix_ is supposed to pick Sirius up.  
  
“I hope you find him,” the captain says when the transporter already has a grip of Remus’ molecules.  
  
“Thank you,” he says but he doesn’t have a voice anymore, and when he has, he’s standing in the transporter room in Starbase 38.  
  
The cargo ship is so big that he gets lost twice in the first day. After that he mainly sits in his tiny cabin. No one talks to him anyway, and he’s quite sure he heard the words _insane space oddness physicist_ whispered a few times so that kind of explains it.  
  
When there’s an ionic storm and the ship has to stop for at least twelve hours, he realises that Sirius’ voice is echoing in his mind again. _I have to be on time_ , he thinks. _I have to be there on time or I can’t ever see him again_ , and Sirius laughs in his head in an odd, rushed sound.  
  
  
**  
  
**  
  
  
In the dream they’re on a shore leave. They both look young in the way they never really were. Sirius is so handsome it makes Remus almost mad, because how the hell could Sirius have ever loved him, and Sirius grabs him and laughs at him and then drags him to the beach that wasn’t there a second ago. They swim naked, and the water is cold and the waves are high, and Sirius’ hands hold Remus in place and everything feels quite real, except that this never happened.  
  
They have sex in the hotel room that’s so white it burns Remus’ eyes so he keeps them closed. In the dream he has Sirius inside of him and it hurts but in a good way, not like in real life that one time when they tried it. It takes forever and the waves are all around him and Sirius is so close to him he can’t tell them apart. He forgets that he’s lonely. He comes and it feels as good as in the books he read when he was a teenage boy in Wales and thought he’d never find someone to kiss. Sirius pushes him into the pile of pillows and he’s falling but it doesn’t matter because Sirius is falling with him, and when he reaches the ground they’re in the cottage in Wales and he can hear the sea and the birds and his mouth tastes like salt and the room smells of coffee. Sirius is in the kitchen, making pancakes, dressed in Remus’ old cardigan and no jeans. He looks almost real.  
  
“Azkaban 21 in thirty minutes,” comes the voice through the speakers and wakes Remus up.  
  
He dresses in the civil clothes Captain Evans gave him. The coat is too big, but Azkaban 21 has poor climate conditions and he doesn’t want to freeze before he can see Sirius, if Sirius is still here at all, if he didn’t count the time wrong, or if the world hasn’t changed when he travelled back in time, if he’s still in the same version of reality, if this is the same space, if Sirius is still the same, if -  
  
He walks through the door. His hands are trembling and he clenches his fists.  
  
No one asks him why he wants to go to Azkaban 21. They wish him a good day and then the transporter beam catches him. He closes his eyes that aren’t really eyes anymore, and when he’s back in one piece, there’s the sound of the sea filling his head and salt on his tongue and a woman dressed in black is asking the purpose of his visit.  
  
“I know someone who’s working here at the moment,” he says and pulls up his collars even though they’re in a glass room beside the sea and he can’t really feel the wind, only hear it. “Sirius Black. Would you know where I might find him?”  
  
“We’ll send a request for him,” the woman says. “It’s not safe to move around in here alone. This week we’ve had two cases of people falling into the sea and drowning.”  
  
“Of course,” he says and then sits down in the chair the woman is pointing at. _Maybe he won’t come_ , he thinks when the woman leaves the room. The rain shatters into the glass around him and he knows he’s being stupid. Sirius came to the _Phoenix_ because Dumbledore asked him to. He will come to see Remus now that Remus is here, on this planet. And it’ll be clear that Remus came for him. There’ll be no point in pretending.  
  
When the door opens, the sound is so quiet it takes Remus a few seconds to realise it happened and there’s someone in the room with him.  
  
He stands up and turns around.  
  
Sirius pulls the hood away and looks at him as if he couldn’t be there.  
  
Remus can’t hear the sea anymore, nor the wind, nor the sound of his own heart. Sirius is standing four feet away from him, watching him with grey eyes and a tight mouth and rainwater still falling down on his face. Sirius is alive.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says, “what the fuck are you doing here? The _Phoenix_ is supposed to pick me up in two days.”  
  
“I’m still in love with you,” Remus says.


End file.
